When the boy was dying in the street, the crowd didn't help him. You were with the kid, then you were against him. What did he do to deserve it. Maybe he did nothing. Maybe the crowd doesn't know what to do. What's the story. Your brain solved problems like these while the coffee cooled. Petty, human, revealing problems. You looked at the waitress, shook your head. What would she think if you ordered the wine. Ever concerned, conscientious waitress. She poured a new coffee, you took a walk around the block, came back and ordered a wine.
 You looked for evidence of a reaction the next day. Who looked like they were still thinking about it, what did they think. They said nothing. They looked at your curious face, back at the soccer game. Fucking yankee gringo.
 You began to notice men who didn't smile, who got their asses kissed. Who were concerned with matters of coercion, or otherwise kept secrets. The coffee tasted a little bitter, the wine a little tart. The girls were less sexy and mysterious. When the waitress looked at you, she looked for forgiveness for what she was in your eyes. It gave you the confidence to fuck her, finally. That you should probably leave was something she wouldn't admit because, like your desire to be in on the secrets of this town, it just wasn't cool.
 To anybody reading this who ever moved to a far away place to engineer a better persona somewhere else, everybody knows, and it's pathetic. The idea that you could fool people is where the unawareness starts. 
 Things you weren't aware of: what the town thought of you, who controlled the waitress, their plans for you. I shouldn't say that it's total unawareness. You did have a few sleepless nights before you wound up with a gun in your mouth. Some part of you knew, and you should have listened to it, obviously. But you didn't. You got out of bed and put on that stupid shirt, greeted people with that stupid smile, practiced the new you.
 The waitress the kind of woman who goes to psychics and waives away her inability to keep her legs closed as 'life'.

You inhale. Look at the sky. Read the piece of paper again: "Become blackmailable." Authenticate it again. Still passes. Of course it does. How stupid would you look if the protocol was compromised. Anyway, we have to become blackmailable.
 Hairy loved poetry when he was young and ran a newspaper in college. Out of college he was recruited by the CIA and now he maintains a beard and intimidates people. Looks he like he just got back from a fishing trip. You never take the bullet when he offers it. You always flip. Maybe it's the literary beard. People like him.

The shadow of the leafy tree against the yellow house animate in the wind like this mediterranean dream: the construction primitive; the sun an obnoxious kind of hot; the people and the conversation the passionate and trivial kind, charming in the way a Spanish island makes you ignore your scruples and partake.
 When the boy died the crowd didn't help him. You were with the kid, then you were against the kid. What did he do to deserve it. Maybe he did nothing. Maybe the crowd doesn't know what to do. What's the story. Your brain solved problems like these while the coffee cooled. Petty, human, telling. You looked at the waitress, shook your head. What would she think if you ordered the wine. Ever concerned, conscientious waitress. She poured a new coffee, you took a walk around the block, ordered a wine.
 You looked for evidence of a reaction the next day. Who looked like they were still thinking about it, what did they think. They said nothing. They looked at your curious face, back at the soccer game. Fucking yankee gringo.
 You began to notice men who didn't smile, who got their asses kissed. Who were concerned with matters of coercion, or otherwise kept secrets. The coffee tasted a little bitter, the wine a little tart. The girls were less sexy and mysterious. When the waitress looked at you, she looked for forgiveness for what she was in your eyes. It gave you the confidence to fuck her, finally. That you should probably leave was something she wouldn't admit to you, because, like your desire to be in on the secrets of this town, it just wasn't cool.
 To anybody reading this who ever moved to a far away place because you thought you could engineer a better persona, everybody knows, and it's a bit pathetic. The idea that you could fool people is where the unawareness starts. Things you weren't aware of: what the town thought of you, who controlled the waitress, their plans for you. I shouldn't say that it's total unawareness. You did have a few sleepless nights before you wound up with a gun in your mouth. Some part of you knew, and you should have listened to it, obviously. But you didn't. You got out of bed and put on that stupid shirt, greeted people with that stupid smile, practiced the new you.
 The waitress the kind of woman who goes to psychics and waives away her inability to keep her legs closed as life.

The suicide rate of the elderly is rising.

I stand in the human highway and feel the vibrations of the train above me. The foot steps of those walking beside me heavy with their stories, marching on to where some place justifies its existence wit how many people go there.

Let me tell you what it's like to be inside my head:

I'm not the boy peering through the window, I'm the man sitting there in the cafe watching and listening, listening and watching. Like some creep, I suppose some think of me. If they only knew how much better than them I really am. Admitting my superiority is a mistake, so from now on we're gonna go on like I never did, like the way I talk to small people who are offended by that sort of thing, like this book is a bible where some God, not me, is the real source of information, and so should be the target of your scorn.

Let me tell you what it's like inside my head:

I'm not the boy peering through the window. I'm the man sitting there in the cafe watching and listening, listening and watching, watching you. Like some creep, so they say. If they only knew how much better I am. Admitting my superiority is a mistake. From now on we're gonna go on like I never did, like the way I talk to small people who are offended by that sort of thing, like this book is a bible where some God, not me, is the real source of information, and so should be the target of your petty scorn.

Let's split the night between the two of us
If if the silence begs a whisper

Reap the silence for a dream, and then lets
Split the dream between the two of us

See the darkness in the sunset, see it
For the darkrise that it is in the time of

Visions in the noise the real, and
The flesh the ghost

Let's split the night between the two of us
If the silence begs a whisper, reap the silence for a dream

The girl has dangerous eyes. Green and ready
To be fought for - where does her confidence come from

Just before night there is the hour when the sky
Remains illuminated by a sun already set

Makes you wonder if the night doesn't creep up from the streets
And the sunset isn't a reflection in a puddle of gasoline

In an hour like this she stood in front of me and said
I brought some wine, let's split it between the two of us

In the way she said wine all the romantic essence of wine
And the look in her eyes, I didn't have to feel lucky

Not to have fought over her, though threatening
That I might have to

I closed my eyes and wished she wasn't there
But she was, and talking in that dangerous way

Like she herself born of the negative space left behind by day
Like herself a dream to fill the silence

In the streets people not afraid to get involved in the lives of others.
They say things like, I miss him.
They smoke, and watching the smoke dissipate, they say that they just miss him, that's all.
I always think of that French song to understand, La Vie en Rose. I pretend to have a cigarette and walk down the street listening to that song. When it gets to sunset, and everything's awash in that hazy glow, I think I understand. To justify things people do with a shrug, to take selfies, have relationships you can't explain the point of.
No, I don't get it. It's all crazy to me.
There was one time when I was about eleven when I thought I felt the presence of God. I was living with Marty and Esther, and we wound up eating at a church. The church had bought us all dinner, and it was us and a couple other families. One guy was quiet and shy. He was a young guy, red hair, beard. He had a Mexican wife and three little kids. Anyway, he was quiet until it was time to say grace. He sang like it was an opera or something, loud and for a long time. I looked up and saw everyone was bowed the whole time. It was a very warm feeling.
Later, as we drove away, I looked out the back window at the sunset with its colors and its majesty and had this religious feeling. It was definitely a good feeling. It didn't last.
Marty was one of those guys always making up for his uncool childhood.
He was short and had a ridiculous comb over, but hey he played the bongos and smoked weed. I will always remember his understanding blue eyes.

I knew she was damaged as she sat eating next to me. I kept my eyes on the keyboard, but she ate and ate and looked around, her movements a little too inviting, her eyes a little too curious.

The thing about working in those places is, you never get mad at a computer. I mean you do get mad when it doesn't do what it's supposed to do, but those computers never made a mistake. Sometimes the arm would break a meat patty in half, and it would just pause there. It was a mistake, but it wasn't really a mistake, because it can't be expected to do everything right. It was just funny to me how it waited, it didn't have to wait.
 I got those jobs under the right to employment act, which said that every business had to have at least one human working there. I got paid a little more than the default ____.
 What was really funny was how they tried to explain it to me, why every place had to have one human. I sat there and I listened, it was always some interpretation of people's fear of closing the loop. If robots design themselves, they start solving for their own self replicability.
 It's not that they were wrong, it's that it didn't matter. I knew that the first semi biological machines would be so good at social engineering, not only would they immediately have control, but you couldn't prove or disprove it. After I designed the first machine that thought, I told them never to ask it existential questions. That didn't work. They kept asking it what was the meaning of life. It wrote programs that answered more and more to their satisfaction until they taught the damn thing to lie.
 I told them when it finally said, I don't know, that it was over, the singularity had happened.

I smoke for the sound of it. Sometimes it takes more than one to hear the perfect drag. I don't care. However many it takes.

I smoke for the sound of it. That crackling sound when you take a solid drag. I listen for the sound. Sometimes it takes more than one cigarette to get it right. I don't care. However many it takes.
There was one time I was on the bus. I was a kid, fifteen maybe. I saw this kid outside. He was wearing one of those karate uniforms, and he was doing little moves for his mother. Right there outside the bus, on the sidewalk, he was putting on a show and she was taking pictures. Taking pictures. He was lost in it, in whatever that uniform made him feel. His mother was egging him on, come on show me, yeah that's the way, attaboy.  She changed angles and blocked out the sun and followed him around. She was a heavy set one. Looked she liked to be tied up.
 Anyways, then there was this kid who sat in front of me, a brown kid. He was skinny. Beside him sat a girl, seventeen or so. How was school, what's your name she asked him. She was on the phone, said I got him. Are you okay, she asked him. He nodded. Then he just looked out the window. Didn't say anything, just looked out there, at the world, the street, the trees. What did he see. What was he looking for. His neck was so skinny. He leaned his head against the window and looked out. She kept babbling on the phone. Perfume, blond hair. She was irritating. One of those girls has a great image of herself. Grows up to be a woman who has affairs.
 What was the kid seeing, what was he thinking. I remember his head bouncing against the window with the bus. He just kept looking out the window.
 Back then I used to think I was invincible. I couldn't imagine not being. What's the point of not being. You go on thinking you're invincible until you die, and then you don't change your mind, you just stop thinking. That's one of those things people only pretend to change their mind about. Anyone who thinks they're invincible as a kid still believes it in secret. Secretly they all think that. What's the point in not.
 I used to have a dreams where somebody tried to kill me and they couldn't.
 In one of them, it was me and my sisters sitting on a bench, and in front of us stood this monster. A giant werewolf. He was caught in a spiderweb, and he struggled to free himself, and we knew eventually he would. My sisters were scared, but I wasn't. I didn't know how I was going to defeat the monster, but I knew he couldn't defeat me. I just knew he couldn't. I wasn't afraid.
 Then there was one where I had a girlfriend. I had a motorcycle, and I'd take her on it to the beach, to the woods. She was a great girl, a dream of a girl. But her old man didn't like me. Just hated me. And I hated him. He tried everything. He tried to shoot me. He did shoot me. It was over an argument over dinner. It just went in and out and left no trace. The look he gave me. I didn't give him a look. To me it was normal. I just left. Then when she was riding with me on my motorcycle he tried to run me over. She was on the back, terrified. She had that look on her face, that look of disillusionment. I still remember that from the dream, her look. Like it would never be the same after this. This was it, the last straw. She held me so tight. He followed us and followed us, and then he did it, he hit us hard. I remember that we both went flying in the air. We left the bike and we just flew. I saw her land, she was done for. But I never landed. The angels picked me up before I could fall, they lifted me in the air and gently set me down. I looked down at her, at him. That idiotic look on his face. I will never forget that look on his face.

The secretaries, oh the secretaries. The ones I don't like already know the game when they come. That knowing look, like they'd been through it before. They expected something from me. What did they expect. Fuck them.
 The only people worth thinking about were the ones you could watch learning. You could see it. The real story came out, the real thing showed its face.
 First the eagerness. They were all eager. That's why you were hired, the eagerness, don't you know that? Well.
 Then the came the puzzle. This was the longest part, the hardest. If you were smart enough to be eager, but dumb enough to never put the pieces together, you'd last.
 At some point there is that look of realization. I watched for it, watched for the pain. They were something before, now they were different. The had a fantasy of themselves that was different front where they were going. The death of a fantasy. I felt their pain. I wonder if they knew I knew. Then you fire them. That's something very few know.
 We had one guy, Tim, who was an idiot. Just a real idiot. Certain things would never cross his mind.
 There was one time of me and him at the bar. He stood there, and he said, I don't know what to do. He said that. He had that look he got after we called him vice president, that idiot look. He decided to get black out drunk, like a college student, because he could not choose between his secretary and his wife. I patted him on the back, I know said. It's hard, I said. The idiot.
 His secretary was just like him, easily motivated. She was with me at the bar one night, and I laid it on thick with her. I told her what separates winners from losers, and why she had it. Real thick. What you do in that case is you lean in, and you whisper it. Like a secret. Like you're only telling her because you're drunk. I could feel a heat coming from her whenever we were in the same room, like a radiator, like a lily in the sun. I ignored the fuck out of her. I hardly said hello, hardly looked at her. The week after she was fucking the shit out of Tim.
 I had this fantasy in my head, of a secretary who wouldn't break. I would sit there and think about her. She'd know the game, but she wouldn't play it. You'd give her a look, and she'd look away before it got hot. She'd be graceful about it. You could take her to the bar, and she'd drink a virgin bloody marry, and she'd laugh about it. You'd laugh about it. You could be close to her, close to her smile. You'd know her scent, she'd know yours. But she was always look away before it got hot.
 No one like that ever showed up. How could I ask for so much.

 Hotels are a perfect thing. They will never go away. Every hotel is the same, whether they like it or not.
 There is a feeling of being in a hotel. It's something like a Hopper painting. When you get in, around five or six, and the light coming in is yellow and warm, and it's just you, just you and the bed with the patch of light on it, and you throw your things on the bed and look out the window. You always throw your things on the bed, and look out the window with your hands on the window sill.
 I told Tim to move into a hotel room. His wife wasn't having him, and so I said, just get a hotel room for a couple of weeks. It'll be good for you. He said hotels make him lonely. He said he didn't like the yellow wall paper, said he started to drink all day. He called his wife, called his secretary. His wife dumped him, the idiot. Guys named Tim are always idiots.
 The thing about a hotel room is that you always know what to expect. Sometimes you'll hear someone walking in the hallway. The sound will be muffled, like a whisper. Sometimes a cleaning lady will come in, but only if you don't leave a do not disturb sign. Can you believe it. A woman will come to clean your mess, unless you tell her not to. That's beautiful. Hotels are a beautiful thing.
 Looking out a hotel window, you feel good. You always feel good. A new perspective on the world. The world out there at an angle you hadn't looked at it, there for you to gawk at from the hotel room.

Hotels are a perfect thing. They will never go away. Every hotel the same, whether they like it or not.
A guy named Hopper made a painting of a woman in a hotel room. She's just sitting on the bed there, looking out the window. The light is hazy, the wallpaper is yellow, and there's that stillness, that newness. That's the feeling I love.
When I walk into a hotel room, I throw my things on the bed, and then I go to the window. You always throw your things on the bed

There's a model who used to be a refugee. One day she was a fucking refugee, and the next day she was doing what models. I wonder what she would say if I asked her what it's like. I'd like her to say, well I just do things, you know. They ask me to do this or that, they pay me. That's what I know. There's no accounting for it. I don't know why I'm here and not there.

People wonder about me. When they meet me, they think, how. How did he do it. I know it, I know the look. They don't think I know. I want to tell them, you do things to get things. There's no accounting for it. I don't know why I'm here and not there. You don't either. You ask why I'm here, you don't ask why you're here. Don't ask. It doesn't matter. What would you do with the answer if I gave it to you. What would happen, if you figured it out. You do things to get things, that's what you do. There's no accounting.

When we first met she was nervous. I moved her into the house, the big house. Her little frame moving around in her little dresses. When the maid would walk down the hall at the same time as her, she wouldn't know what to do. She'd get out of the maid's way, she'd hug the wall.
 I liked to think of filthy things to say to her. Things that'd make her toes curl, make her look at me in that way. That's what I liked to do.
 Sometimes I'd find her staring at me. When you're laying in bed falling asleep, and you catch her staring at you, that's when you know. She would be laying there staring, and I'd turn to her, I'd ask her if she was mine. Then I'd ask her to prove it. Her lying there, skinny and dumb. Not dumb, just young, good. Honest. I could feel her will, it was very small back then. Like her hands. Small and feminine. Look, I'd say to her, I like you. You know that, you know that I like you, right? You're a great girl. Great Girl. But there's one thing I need you to do. I need you to promise that this time will be the best. Like I said, I like you and all, but you know. I've got to get off, that's all. You should be able to do it. What else is there for you to do. What else you got to think about. This is your life now, you have no other worry on the planet. And I was right, what else was there. I don't know how it changed. It was the kid. The kid gave her the idea, when she was still pregnant. I never wanted to have the damn kid. How could I be so weak.

What they called a church was a room added onto a small house and you could see into the kitchen from the front door. The young pastor the oldest son of the family that built it. In that morning's congregation sat two women whom he slept with and he stood in the doorway of the church and smoked and thought about the women. He lit his second cigarette on the first and turned his face to the firmament and filled his vision of it with pale smoke. He was a thinly mustached and impatient man who had to be talked out of absconding the town regularly. He looked out over the country that abided his ambitions and wondered if his first child would change him. Finally he placed a kerchief over his face and went inside.

In a back bedroom of the house, Joe cut the boot from the man's swollen and gangrenous foot. They had tried to pull it off, but the man's screaming was too much, and now Joe took a pair of iron shears to the thick hide

What they called a church was an add on to a small house, and you can see the kitchen plainly from the front door of the church. The pastor of the church the oldest son of the family who built it. Two women whom he slept with were present that mornings congregation and he stood there in the doorway and smoked and thought about the women. He ashed the cigarette and shook his head at the firmament.

Joe and Richard had pulled the boot from the man who near emptied the church of its parishioners with the stench of his rotting foot, and the pastor observed the man's foot half consumed by maggots with a kerchief held to his face he pulled aside to smoke.
 You ever seen this?
 No, said Joe.
 The pastor pointed at the desintigrating flesh, his finger shaking, what, what is to be done here. We don't got no damn doctor.
 What's a doctor gonna do.
 The man lay there, his voice vulgar and hallucinatory

I don't know what it was. I can't say he was willful, or even strong. He looked strong. But I knew enough of him to see him for the wavering, opportunistic, lucky idiot he was. It was his jaw. He had a very strong jaw, and it made him look like knew what he was doing. Like when he'd leave the bar with a girl, that look he'd have, as if he willed it to happen, but I knew she was pretending he was someone else, and he was pretending she was someone else, and he was just glad he could look good in someone's eyes. He was just lucky there was another fool there that night, that's all.

^^ When i512 joins a group of homeless looking guys because some of them are agents, describe them in this way, make it look like he was really in that group. He sells some drugs to them, but is small time.  He starts selling for one of their group and gets in. Write stupidity first of all, and distinguish agents through anecdotal

I don't know what it was. I can't say he was willful, or even strong. He looked strong. But I knew enough of him to see him for the wavering, opportunistic, lucky idiot he was. I think it was his jaw. He had a very strong jaw, and it made it look like knew what he was doing. Like when he'd leave the bar with a girl, that look he'd have, it was as if he willed it to happen, but I knew she was pretending he was someone else, and he was pretending she was someone else, and he was just glad he could look good in someone's eyes. He was just lucky there was another fool there that night.

There is something about the boy that sends a shiver down a spine if thought about for too long. In the actions of any man, there is a thread to be found that through sufficient observation unravels his reasoning, his motivations, the origin of his actions so to speak. So that, when he is not present, one can summon his voice in times of uncertainty, one can ask what would he do, or not do. But his will, as it occupied the minds of those who considered themselves his friends, though intoxicating, was unknowable. Its idiosyncrasies were strange and unfamiliar, and so friendship was only an illusion, and the people in his life were unwilling captives of their admiration, which was not replicated in anyone other than Joe.

Her smell, her hair there on the pillow. She looked at him like a cat. He felt her small will, her feminine will. He took her by the hair. You gonna get me off, girl? Well are yah? It's important that I get off. You're a nice person and all, and I like you. But you know.

When Johnny was a boy, the only time he ever told the truth was when he got a lie turned backwards on accident. You know the kind. Well, he never did stop, really. If you ever happen to be a stranger in one of the two bars in that town, and you per chance strike up a conversation with a mustachioed man drinking whiskey by himself, you're libel to be taken on a doozy of a trip.

Men who will die graveless.

He stepped out from the land the stories of which he knew and into the land the stories of which he had only heard. He placed his hand in the stream and passed his hand over the rocks smooth and molded. Somewhere here __write some piece of southwest history that displays courage under fire__. What the land knew of human courage, of cowardice. What the land knew of man that he didn't know, what is it saw in him that he didn't see. A shiver resonated through him. He felt as if at the mercy of a stronger being, as if there were a will for him to navigate, as if being observed by a familiar and powerful thing. The feeling lasted for a minute and then left him,

He found Richard asleep by the fire. He poured the water from container to container until there was no soot to settle at the bottom and placed it over the dying fire to boil. He watched Richard. His strong jaw, his honest eyes. He wondered if there were anything within him he didn't know.

___ as if ___ by some revolution of the heart

She turned away from the window and looked at Joe like some girl overcome by a revolution of the heart and buried her face in her hands and said, all the cows were dead. They were all dead, Joe, my God. All of them.

He breathed deeply and deliberately. He breathed like a diver before a descent.

Johnny had been known to mistreat women in ordinary ways. In endearing ways. He himself had even been known to lose in what people call the game of love, but it was not winning that was important to him, but to play the game at all times. He felt as a child at play, if you will, in all social interactions, and had the same notion of perpetual safety. And so the more horrible that the man pointing the gun at Johnny had no such notion of safety. The game the man with the gun played had come to an end, and now it was time to acknowledge its conclusion and to transfer the wagers lost, and so Johnny took the bullet in his chest, and the man took Johnny's ears.